the case in the plains east of the Tigris, which, sheltered by the Kurdish mountains, possess a more temperate winter. The influence of the Taurus, clad for so many months with snow, is supposed to reduce the rigour of the winter's cold, and to cause the vegetation on the plains of North Syria and Mesopotamia to be less southern than that of Sicily and Andalusia. On the other hand, the heat of the summer sun, increased by radiation and equality of level, is almost without an extenuating influence, there being scarcely an evaporation. Hence, when the winter temperature is low, the summer heats are fervid; from which cause, there are few annual and tender plants found in Assyria. Those divisions of the Assyrian empire which demand particular notice in this section, inasmuch as they were at different periods the seat of government, are Assyria Proper, and Babylonia. ASSYRIA PROPER. The country within the limits of Assyria Proper, is called by Pliny, Adiabene; and by Strabo, after the barbarians, Aturia or Atyria, which, as Dion Cassius observes, is a mere dialetic variety of pronunciation, instead of Assyria. Ptolemy divides Assyria Proper into five provinces or districts, thus: 1. Adiabene. This was the chief province of Assyria. It was so called, according to Ammianus, from the two rivers, Diasa and Adiaba. Adiabene had the Tigris to the west, the province of Apolloniatis to the east, Calachene to the north, and Sittacene to the south. It answers in modern times to that tract of land which extends from the river of Zaco, or the Khabour, to the south-east of the little Zab. From Strabo's expression, Adiabeni vocantur etiam Saccopodes, we learn that Adiabene lay in the north-west quarter, as the appellation of Saccopodes is now recognized in the region and district of Zaco, seventy-seven miles north-west of Mosul. 2. Arrapachitis. This province, according to Ptolemy, was the most northern, its country being watered by the Gyndes. It corresponds exactly to the modern Matiene, or, more properly, Mardiene, where the Gyndes, according to Herodotus, has its source, the mountainous region to the north-west of Ecbatana, or Hamadan, and enters the Tigris half way between Koote and Korna. Both the Little Žab and the Gyndes originated in this district; the former run ning west and south-west to the Tigris, the latter south and south-east to the same stream. 3. Calachene. This province lay north of Adiabene, and corresponds to the modern district of Julameric, or the Ha Kiare Koords. 4. Chalonitis. According to Strabo, Chalonitis was a mountainous region, about the ascent of Mount Zegros, answering to the Kelona of Diodorus and the pass of the modern Ghilanee, leading to Kermanshah. It probably contained the tract between the Hamerine hills, to the pass of Ghilanee, on the road to Kermanshah, or the tract between the Hamerine hills and Mount Zagros, now called the Aiagha Dagh. 5. Sittacene.-Sittacene lay south-east of Chalonitis, between the Silla and the Gyndes. Strabo says, Sittacene and Apolloniatis are names of the same province, the latter being the name imposed by the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest. It was so called from Apollonia, a new city founded by the Greeks. Both Strabo and Stephanus of Byzantium agree in placing Apollonia in the road from Babylon to Susa, and the latter makes it the twelfth town in that road. If, therefore, Sittacene and Apolloniatis be the same province, and the road from Babylon to Susa lay through that district, then it must have been the most south-eastern subdivision of Assyria, and must have extended from the Deeallah, or ancient Gorgos, to the Gyndes, or Hud. These five districts were again subdivided into minor districts. Thus, in Adiabene were Aturia and Arbelitis; and in the province of Calachene was the district of Marde, now Amadia. RIVERS. The whole country of Assyria Proper is naturally divided into three parts, by two rivers which rise in the Zagros mountains, and, after traversing Koordistan, fall into the Tigris. The first of these is the Lycus. This river is the Zabatus of Xenophon, and the modern Greater Zab. It is a stream equal in volume to half the Tigris at the confluence. Sometimes it is called the river of Julameric, from the Ha Kiare Su, its great north-western branch, which, in its course to the Zab, passes by a town of that name, and capital of the district of the Kiare Koords. The river rises in the mountains of Persian Koordistan, and pursues a north-westerly direction, and, traversing the breadth of Turkish Koordistan, empties itself with rapidity into the Tigris, about forty-five miles below Mosul, and imparts its own turbid character to the subsequent course of that river. Its breadth, where it enters the Tigris, does not exceed sixty feet; but at the low water horse ford, on the road to Mosul, it is two hundred feet wide, at the least. In the line of road from Mosul to Arbela, now Irbil, considerably to the east of the Tigris, it is deep and unfordable, especially when swelled by the melted snows of Mount Choatras, whose hoary summits are discovered at a great distance on the right hand of the road from Bagdad to Mosul. The second river, the Caprus, also named Zabas, or Anzabus, by the latter Greek and Roman writers, is probably the present Lesser Zab. The Little Zab is a narrow but deep river, which rises in the nearer declivity of the Koordistan mountains, and pursues nearly a direct south-west course of 150 miles to the Tigris, which it enters in lat. 35°. 10'. At this point, the width of the Little Zab is only twenty-five feet, although in its upper course, after it has received the Altun Su (golden water) at Altun Kupri, (golden bridge,) its breadth is nearly three times as great. It, however, discharges an immense body of water into the Tigris, which immediately after forms a fearful rapid and fall, which greatly endangers the rafts that navigate the river between Mosul and Bagdad. These two rivers, according to Bochart, are the Diaba and Adiaba, or the Diava and Adiava. Diava, he observes, is lupus, or lupinus, "wolf," or "wolfish ;" diva being the Chaldee for " a wolf;" hence he derives the Greek Lycus, which bears the same signification. Ptolemy calls it the Lukos, or "White river," an appellation which corresponds with the colour of its waters, which is most probably the proper term, Lycus being Lukos latinized. This appellation is very common in many countries; as in America, where we read of the White, Red, Yellow, and Black rivers. The larger branch of the Nile is also called the Abiad, or White River, from its muddiness; as the other is called Azrek, or Blue, from its clearness. Adiaba, the name of the second river, is derived by the same learned writer from an Arabic word signifying "swift;" but this point is by no means clear. The modern name, Zab, he says, is corrupted from Diaba, or derived from the Hebrew Zeeb, which differ but in dialect. Thevenot, in his "Travels to the Levant," speaks of one river only, calls it Zarb, and says he saw it fall into the Tigris, By the natives these rivers are called Zarpi. The Zarb is spoken of by Thevenot as a large river, half as broad as the Tigris; and he observes that it is very rapid, and that its waters are whitish and very cold; whence he conceives that it is merely snow-water falling from the mountains of Koordistan. This agrees with Bochart's conjecture of the Adiaba; namely, that it derives its name from the swiftness of its course. Among the rivers of Assyria, may be justly reckoned the Tigris, not only because it bathed all the western skirts o this country, but also because all the other rivers flowed into it, and because the great cities of this kingdom, as Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and others, were situated thereon. Tigris.-The Tigris is said by some to have borrowed its name from the number of tigers on its banks, as Lycus did from the wolves that haunted the margin of that river. Others derive it from a Persian word signifying an arrow; both terms importing it to be rapid and violent in its course. Some travellers, however, contradict this; stating that it is a slower stream than the Euphrates, and that this is caused by the meanders with which it abounds, as well as its numerous islands and large banks of stone. Ainsworth, who accompanied the Euphrates expedition in 1838, states that the Tigris has a moderate current below Bagdad, but passing over several ledges of rock in its course from Mosul to that city, it forms rapids of greater or lesser importance. The Scripture name of this river is Hiddekel, Gen. ii. 14; Dan. x. 4; and Bochart derives its present name from that Hebrew word. Rauwolf says, that the natives of that part of the world call it Hiddekel to this day. It is locally and usually distinguished by the term Digel, or Diglah; and if we deprive the Scripture name of the prefixed aspiration, the remainder, Dekel, has considerable analogy with it. The passage in the book of Genesis speaks of the Tigris as one of the rivers that watered the garden of Eden. "And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria;" that is, towards, or before, Assyria. Rennell, in his Geography of Herodotus, describes the source of the Tigris thus: "The Euphrates and Tigris spring from opposite sides of Mount Taurus, in Armenia; the former, from its upper level, northward; the latter, from its southern declivity; and certain of the sources of the two rivers are only separated by the summits of Taurus. And yet, notwithstanding this vicinity, the sources of the Tigris, by being in a southern exposure, where the snow melts much earlier than at the back of the mountain, and in a more ele vated situation, occasion the periodical swelling of the river to happen many weeks earlier than the swellings of the Euphrates. Of the two, the Tigris seems to be the largest body of water." Pliny represents the Tigris as rising in the region of Armenia Major, from a spring in a remarkable plain, called Elongosine. It runs, he says, through the lake Arethusa, and meeting with Mount Taurus, buries itself underground, and rises again on the other side of the mountain. This account of Pliny has been adopted by Milton, in the fine description he gives of the garden of Eden. Describing the rise and course of the river which watered the garden, issuing from the country of Eden, he says: "Southward through Eden, went a river large, Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill, Runs diverse, wand'ring many a famous realm That by "the river large" the poet meant the Tigris, appears evident from the parallel passage, wherein he describes Satan as obtaining admission into the garden through the subterranean course, which lay remotest from the cherubic watch at the entrance. -There was a place, Now not, (though sin, not time, first wrought the change,) -ix. 69.-76. The whole course of the Tigris to the sea is 854 British miles ; thus-From the remotest source to Korna, is 734 miles, and from thence to the sea, 120 miles; in all, 854, exclusive of the windings. From the source to Diyarbekr, 65; from Diyarbekr to Mosul, 230; from Mosul to Bagdad, 224; from Bagdad to the mouth of the Deeallah, 15; to the Synne, |